Furan is a commodity in the chemical industry, widely used as a starting material for the preparation of tetrahydrofuran. It has in the past been made from pentoses which occur naturally in corn or in oat hulls. More recently, a method was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,960 whereby furan can be prepared from butene diethers.
British Pat. No. 1,138,366 discloses a method for preparing such diethers, using as a catalyst a salt or co-ordination compound of palladium, platinum, nickel, iron or cobalt (all metals of Group 8 of the periodic Table) together with a copper redox system.
The present invention provides a method for preparing the butene diethers without using Group 8 metal catalysts, i.e., in a medium substantially free of these metals.